National & International

British Children clueless about nature

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British Children clueless about nature

British children might struggle to identify common wildlife and plants- including conkers according to the Huffington Post.

Research conducted involving a thousand kids aged five to sixteen for the activity app Hoop, found that less than half of kids were able to identify stinging nettles and a quarter of children were clueless as to what a conker is.

For the study, children were shown various natural objects and asked what they were which resulted in more than ninety percent failed to identify a beech leaf and a cabbage white butterfly.

But eighty two percent failed to identify a bumblebee, just under a quarter didn’t recognise a robin and a similar amount didn’t know what a badger looked like.

Here’s what they failed to identify:

  • Beech Leaf (97%)
  • Cabbage white butterfly (96%)
  • Bumblebee (83%)
  • Oak Leaf (82%)
  • Kingfisher (65%)
  • Blue tit (65%)
  • Stinging nettle (51%)
  • Puffin (49%)
  • Conker (24%)
  • Robin (23%)
  • Badger (22%)

More than a quarter of their parents said their children had little or no interest int the outside world (although, since over half of children don’t recognise nettles, maybe that’s why they don’t want to go outside- they’re getting stung the hell out of them every time).

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